LGBT+ Liberal Democrats
group within the Liberal Democrats British political party
LGBT+ Liberal Democrats is a British lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other sexual minorities equality group of the Liberal Democrats political party. The organisation is one of several Specified Associated Organisations, giving it special status within the party, and has been referred to as one of the "most important" of such groups. The group campaigns both within the party and UK-wide on LGBT+ issues, as well as mentoring and providing advice to the party's candidates.
Formation and early years
Initially known as Democrats for Lesbian & Gay Action, or DELGA for short, the organisation was formed in 1988 from the groups "Liberal Lesbian & Gay Action" and "Social Democrats for Lesbian & Gay Action". The parent parties of those organisations, the Liberal Party and SDP, had merged to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, known generally as the Democrats. The name was officially altered to be Liberal Democrats for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Action in 1996, including bisexual and transgender people in the title and reflecting the renaming of the party to the Liberal Democrats. However, the shorthand DELGA remained in use until 2011, when the organisation renamed to "LGBT+ Liberal Democrats".
One of the early campaigns by the group was "16 or bust". Started in 1991, it pushed to lower the age of consent for sex between gay men from 21 to 16, equal with heterosexual couples. This was in contrast to the approach of organisations such as Stonewall who were in favour of lowering the age to 18, seeing it as an achievable compromise.
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This entry incorporates text from “LGBT+ Liberal Democrats” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.